Following Clara
by Steamboat Ravis
Summary: Officer Edward Thompson, of the Silent Hill Police Department, awakens to find his town empty and his daughter missing. Now he must face the horrors of Silent Hill to find her.


Following Clara  
  
A Silent Hill fanfiction  
  
by  
  
Steamboat Ravis  
  
Ed opened his eyes. It was five o'clock in the evening on Friday and Ed was late. The alarm hadn't gone off. He was supposed to pick up Clara an hour ago. He felt a little guilty, but he wasn't worried. This would not be the first time that Ed Thompson was late to pick up his daughter from school, and Clara had always been able to take care of herself. However, Ed did have some sense of urgency about the matter. Tonight was going to be Friday night, and Friday night was Clara night, and Clara night was special. Clara night was special because it was the one night of the week that Ed spent with his daughter. Clara night was also special because it was the only night of the week that Ed didn't put two drops of White Claudia under his tongue and spend the rest of the night calmly hallucinating in his living room.  
  
  
  
From What Ed understood, White Claudia was an herb with seeds that contained a powerful hallucinogen. How the hallucinogen got from the seed to the small bottles that Dr. Kuafmann gave him every week, Ed had no idea. Ed did know this much; however, White Claudia was very big business in Silent Hill, and it did not pay to get in the way of the people who ran this business. More importantly, Ed knew that he would not last very long without White Claudia.   
  
  
  
Before he became a White Claudia addict, Ed had never done any drugs and had hardly ever drank. That fact, as well as the death of his wife Sarah, helped excuse, in Ed's mind, much of the shame associated with disregarding his duties both as a father and as an officer of the Silent Hill police department to be a full time junkie. Because this was Clara night, a drug-free night, Ed had taken his two drops in the morning, like he always did on Clara night. This was why Ed always set the alarm for a quarter to four, because when Ed didn't set the alarm Ed was late. Ed hadn't set the alarm this morning. Ed knew that there was a good reason for why he hadn't, but he couldn't remember it, and he was already late. He didn't have time to worry about it.   
  
  
  
Ed stood up from his La-Z-Boy recliner, which was his favorite perch for White Claudia Trips, and became aware of how he smelled. Corpses didn't smell this bad. He always smelled terrible after using White Claudia. It made him sweat so much that he always kept a pitcher full of ice water next him when he dropped, but this time he hadn't. He'd forgotten the alarm and the water. For a moment Ed stood and thought about this. It seemed very odd to Ed that he had forgotten these two things which had been part of his routine for three years. Ed shook of this thought and went to the front door of his house, stopping once to take a hooded jacket off of the coat-hanger, and stepped out.   
  
Ed took a few paces away from his house before he had to stop. He was standing in a fog so thick he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. The fog filled the streets of Silent Hill. This was the thickest fog that Ed had ever seen and something about the way it seemed hang to quietly over the town made him feel uneasy, but Ed was in a hurry and didn't have time to worry about it. Also, the fog would hopefully keep anyone on the street from noticing that right now Ed looked exactly like what he was, a drug addict. Strange as it was, the fog suited Ed just fine. Also, Ed had lived in Silent Hill his whole life. He could find his way to Midwich Elementary School with his eyes closed if he had to.  
  
  
  
Ed had walked several blocks before he noticed the silence. Ed always walked to Midwich Elementary school to pick up Clara on Fridays. This was because Ed had usually not come down from his White Claudia trips before he would have to leave, and that would make driving far too dangerous. Also, the cool air outside always helped to sober him up a bit. He was walking with his hood over his head to avoid calling attention to himself. This was a fairly small town and Ed knew most of the people in it, and he knew that if any of them noticed that he was on White Claudia, he would loose his job. This was why it took Ed so long to notice the silence. The streets were empty. There was not on person walking on the side walk or one moving car in the street. The silence was complete, and it caused Ed to stop in his tracks. It was unsettling, but the silence suited Ed's purpose just as well as the fog did. Nobody on the streets meant nobody to notice the drug addict making his way to the elementary school to pick up his daughter an hour late.  
  
As soon as Ed started to walk again, he heard another set of footsteps behind him. It sounded as though whoever was it, they were headed in Ed's direction, and quickly. Ed was alarmed, but he kept walking and tried not to show it. He didn't know how, but Ed was sure that whoever was behind him was looking for him. He tried to dismiss the idea as paranoia but, he couldn't shake it.  
  
"Ed," called the voice that belonged to the footsteps.  
  
  
  
"Shit," Ed muttered under his breath as he turned to face the approaching figure of a young woman.  
  
As the woman approached Ed through the fog, he began to see her more clearly. She, like Ed, was tall and thin, but while Ed's thin body gave him a more frail and scrawny appearance, ill suited to a police officer, the woman's thinness betrayed a kind of delicate beauty. She had dark green eyes, again like Ed's, and Her hair was blond and short in a way that reminded Ed of the way Clara's hair looked on the few occasions that Ed could pull himself out of his stupor enough to take her to have it cut.  
  
"Where are you going?" the woman asked.  
  
Ed was almost as startled by the forwardness of the question, as he was by the appearance of this woman who he had never seen before on the streets of the town that Ed was fairly sure he knew just about everyone in. In the summer, the Silent Hill was a fairly successful resort town, but this was January. In the winter, you seldom saw anyone who didn't live in the town.  
  
"What? Do I know you?" Ed stuttered.  
  
  
  
"I asked where you were going, Ed," She said in a voice that sounded to Ed like one part venom and two parts bitterness, "and no, you don't know me."  
  
  
  
Ed had only just met this woman, whoever she was, and he had already decided that he didn't much like her. Ed was also becoming more and more aware of how obvious it must be that he had all to recently been enjoying some very powerful drugs, and he decided that as much as he enjoyed being badgered by strange women, he should end this conversation quickly and be on his way.  
  
  
  
"Listen, Miss," Ed said, sounding exactly as annoyed as he actually was, "I don't know who you are, or how you know my name, and right now I don't much care. I'm on my way pick up my daughter from school and I really don't have time for this."  
  
  
  
"She's not there," The woman said impatiently.  
  
  
  
"What," Ed said again. This time more annoyed than startled.  
  
  
  
"Clara's not there," The woman answered, "You have to come with me."  
  
  
  
"I'm not going anywhere until I pick up my daughter," Ed said, "And then the only place I'm going is home, and what do you know about my daughter?" Ed demanded, growing ever angrier.  
  
  
  
"Only what you've forgotten, Ed," she said, as she turned to walk away. "But I guess I always could count on you to forget anything important."  
  
Ed stood for a moment watching her walk away. He wasn't sure whether he was more angry or confused. Either way, he was glad that she was leaving. He didn't have time worry about strange women right now. It was getting later and later, and Ed knew he'd have to pick up the pace. He turned back towards his goal and walked the rest of the way to Midwich Elementary School in silence. 


End file.
